Part 30 (1/2)

”What can you do for a man who loves the shadow of Life?” he asked.

”If you love the shadow because the substance has pa.s.sed away--if you love the soul because the dust has returned to the earth as it was--”

”It has _not_!” said the younger man.

The Tracer said very gravely: ”It is written that whenever 'the Silver Cord' is loosed, 'then shall the dust return unto the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto Him who gave it.'”

”The spirit--yes; _that_ has taken its splendid flight--”

His voice choked up, died out; he strove to speak again, but could not.

The Tracer let him alone, and bent again over his desk, drawing imaginary circles on the stained blotter, while moment after moment pa.s.sed under the tension of that fiercest of all struggles, when a man sits throttling his own soul into silence.

And, after a long time, Burke lifted a haggard face from the cradle of his crossed arms and shook his shoulders, drawing a deep, steady breath.

”Listen to _me_!” he said in an altered voice.

And the Tracer of Lost Persons nodded.

CHAPTER XVIII

”When I left the Point I was a.s.signed to the colored cavalry. They are good men; we went up Kettle Hill together. Then came the Philippine troubles, then that Chinese affair. Then I did staff duty, and could not stand the inactivity and resigned. They had no use for me in Manchuria; I tired of waiting, and went to Venezuela. The prospects for service there were absurd; I heard of the Moorish troubles and went to Morocco.

Others of my sort swarmed there; matters dragged and dragged, and the Kaiser never meant business, anyway.

”Being independent, and my means permitting me, I got some shooting in the back country. This all degenerated into the merest nomadic wandering--nothing but sand, camels, ruins, tents, white walls, and blue skies. And at last I came to the town of Sa-el-Hagar.”

His voice died out; his restless, haunted eyes became fixed.

”Sa-el-Hagar, once ancient Sas,” repeated the Tracer quietly; and the young man looked at him.

”You know _that_?”

”Yes,” said the Tracer.

For a while Burke remained silent, preoccupied, then, resting his chin on his hand and speaking in a curiously monotonous voice, as though repeating to himself by rote, he went on:

”The town is on the heights--have you a pencil? Thank you. Here is the town of Sa-el-Hagar, here are the ruins, here is the wall, and somewhere hereabouts should be the buried temple of Neith, which n.o.body has found.” He s.h.i.+fted his pencil. ”Here is the lake of Sas; here, standing all alone on the plain, are those great monolithic pillars stretching away into perspective--four hundred of them in all--a hundred and nine still upright. There were one hundred and ten when I arrived at El Teb Wells.”

He looked across at the Tracer, repeating: ”One hundred and ten--when I arrived. One fell the first night--a distant pillar far away on the horizon. Four thousand years had it stood there. And it fell--the first night of my arrival. I heard it; the nights are cold at El Teb Wells, and I was lying awake, all a-s.h.i.+ver, counting the stars to make me sleep. And very, very far away in the desert I heard and felt the shock of its fall--the fall of forty centuries under the Egyptian stars.”

His eyes grew dreamy; a slight glow had stained his face.

”Did you ever halt suddenly in the Northern forests, listening, as though a distant voice had hailed you? Then you understand why that far, dull sound from the dark horizon brought me to my feet, bewildered, listening, as though my own name had been spoken.

”I heard the wind in the tents and the stir of camels; I heard the reeds whispering on Sas Lake and the yap-yap of a s.h.i.+vering jackal; and always, always, the hushed echo in my ears of my own name called across the star-lit waste.

”At dawn I had forgotten. An Arab told me that a pillar had fallen; it was all the same to me, to him, to the others, too. The sun came out hot. I like heat. My men sprawled in the tents; some watered, some went up to the town to gossip in the bazaar. I mounted and cast bridle on neck--you see how much I cared where I went! In two hours we had completed a circle--like a ruddy hawk above El Teb. And my horse halted beside the fallen pillar.”

As he spoke his language had become very simple, very direct, almost without accent, and he spoke slowly, picking his way with that lack of inflection, of emotion characteristic of a child reading a new reader.